Posts Tagged ‘Warren-Spector’

Warren Spector is a busy man. He’s directing the University of Texas at Austin’s game design academy, he’s teaching part-time, he’s traveling and giving talks – the list goes on. But while the Deus Ex and, er, Epic Mickey creator is surrounded by games and relentlessly stalked by his legacy, he’s not actually making anything right now. He didn’t exactly go out on a high note last time, either. Between the new gig(s) and enough accolades to craft cyberpunk augments and a Mickey hat made of pure gold, he could easily call it a career right now. But that, he told me on D.I.C.E.’s red carpet, simply isn’t in the cards. Go below for my brief chat with Spector and special guest star The Internet’s (and also Vlambeer’s) Rami Ismail.

In this second part of my conversation with Warren Spector, we discuss the good and bad of Disney, Spector’s new role as an Academy director, the benefits and drawbacks of growing up as a gamer, and the parallels between Hollywood in the late forties and the games industry now. Also, why indie development is the place to be.

There are a lot of words being written about the new consoles this week but when I spoke to Warren Spector a few days ago, he was clear about where his future lies: “I think all the interesting stuff is happening on PC now… Assuming I make more games, which I intend to do, PC and Mac are going to be my targets.”

It’s good to hear. We spoke at the Bradford Animation Festival and covered a wide range of topics, from his theories of design and pioneering role in PC gaming to thoughts on the current state of the industry. In this first part of our conversation, there’s insight into how Spector see his own legacy and the work of his former colleagues, and how frustrations with Thief’s difficulty inspired the player empowerment of Deus Ex.

I can’t believe I actually feel that it’s necessary for me to write this dumb article. I can’t believe that people are still arguing over what constitutes an “Ebert of Gaming” or a “Citizen Kane of Gaming” or a “Step Up 2 Fast 2 Furious XIII: Starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson And An Egregiously Sexualized Purple Smurf of Gaming”. I can’t believe people continue to name-drop these fairytales in hushed, reverent tones like they’re some kind of long-awaited Messiah. I can’t believe that Deus Ex creator Warren Spector is now one of those people.

Fuck this. Let’s set the record straight on gaming’s insipid inferiority complex once and for all.

For the first time in ages, Deus Ex director Warren Spector is unemployed. The man who created what’s regarded by many as the greatest game of all time isn’t cracking any whips, cooking up cyber conspiracies, or teaching cartoon mice to sing. Instead, he’s taking some time to both teach and learn, which is what brought him to UC Santa Cruz’s recent Interactive Storytelling Symposium. There, he echoed the refrain that’s recently become his calling card: take games to new, interesting places, and don’t just lean on crutches from film, TV, and the like to do it. It was a call to action – a plea for tomorrow’s burgeoning brains to break outside the box and then burn the remains. Do not, however, mistake that for an admission of inaction on Spector’s part. Unemployed or not, his gears are churning again, and he’s starting to think about his next big move. After his session, Spector and I discussed why he can’t simply make another Deus-Ex-esque game, why he really wants to put a “no weapons restriction” on his next project, Kickstarter’s popularity among his pioneering peers, Epic Mickey in retrospect, and more.

Sad news travels fast and although it’s taken a while for Disney to confirm, we’d already heard convincing rumours suggesting that Epic Mickey developers Junction Point had closed earlier today. Polygon have now received a statement from the House of Mouse, which reads in part: “These changes are part of our ongoing effort to address the fast-evolving gaming platforms and marketplace and to align resources against our key priorities.” No mention of the poor sales and reception of Epic Mickey 2, which was initially due on PC, then delayed, and now perhaps cancelled. The staff numbered 160 early last year and hopefully those who find themselves without work today will find new projects and/or studios soon.

There short videos have been attempting to promote Epic Mickey 2 since we last looked at the game and here they are gathered in one place. I can’t believe Warren Spector has managed to incorporate quite so many Star Wars characters and settings into the game in such a short time since the acquisition. The AT-AT boss fight looks absolutely stunning. That’s all in my head, of course, but crossovers are surely inevitable. Kingdom Hearts is the obvious bet, but will Spector develop a Star Wars game? Alec says ‘Tatooine Underworld’. I’ll go with Deus X-Wing.

Sure, Epic Mickey 2 may be part of a diabolical scheme in which we play as one kind of rodent (mouse) while being another type of rodent (guinea pig) for Warren Spector’s goal of turning every videogame ever into a musical, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be great. I’m curious, at least, given all the fightin’ words Spector’s been throwing around about his game’s maturity and the industry’s lack thereof. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait too terribly long to find out whether or not the cyberbrain behind Deus Ex has finally short-circuited, because Joystiq brings word from Comic-Con that Epic Mickey 2’s PC version is launching day-and-date alongside consoles on November 18. Also, Disney released the sing-along sequel’s opening cinematic today, so you can even do a little judging right this very second.

Speaking to Gametrailers, in a chunk of footage you can see below, Epic Mickey 2 lead Warren Spector explained that the fully-voiced cast for the new platformer will regularly feature characters breaking into song, in that time-honored Disney fashion. These songs will apparently explain things and further the story.

Spector also told IGN: “This time around, in the second game, I just wanted to take a baby-step to making the full-blown interactive musical game. This is not it. Gamers, you tell ’em there are songs in the game and they start getting panicked, but I just want to see if people will accept songs in games and, if they do, next time I’m going crazy.”Read the rest of this entry »

Time traveling dimension hoppers from a universe of electrical storms and VHS recorders have unearthed footage Warren Spector’s next game, Epic Mickey 2: The Power Of Two and brought it into our… sorry? It’s Wii footage? Oh, that explains it. I’m usually not snobbish, and I’m sure Youtube’s compression doesn’t do the Wii any favours, but jagged edges and about four colours really don’t show the multiplatform platformer off in the best light. With that warning in mind, try and look past it and into the really lovely art design in the platform sections, and the lovely flat art in the third-person sections. I did make an ‘aww’ when Mickey and whatever the hell the other thing is teamed-up with Mickey as a helicopter. I’m a sap for cute co-op.Read the rest of this entry »

Eight hundred? Well, sort of. They’re not all working on it all of the time, but as Warren Spector explained to Eurogamer: “You can either build a studio that has 700 people, which I desperately don’t want to do, and didn’t and don’t and won’t, okay? Or you can find partners around the world… So we have people working in Leamington in the UK, in Bulgaria, China, Canada, California, Utah. We have an enormous virtual team.” That’s a bit like how RPS works, too, except we have five people. And some cats. They’re useless.

The Epic Mickey sequel – dubbed “The Power Of Two” because of its co-op shenanigans – will be out on PC in September, and we’ll be scanning the horizon for other details as they emerge. Trailer below.Read the rest of this entry »

An micro-inter-RPS debate today was this august publication’s coverage of one W. Spector Esq. Leaving aside issues of platform prissiness, how justified are we in continuing to cover the bepullovered fellow’s words? He has moved to Wii development for the time being (although platforms for Ninja Gold, his still-unseen kicksplode collaboration with John Woo, remain undeclared), but at the same time there’s a big, tall, wobbly chance that RPS simply wouldn’t exist had the games Spector is most commonly associated with never come to pass. He’s a hard man to ignore here.

So let’s tip the collective hat one more time, mouse ears or not. Here’s Warren holding forth at the PAX conference, providing entertainments other than Duke Nukem’s thrusting denim-clad crotch. The question of the moment: why won’t gamers accept games for non-gamers?Read the rest of this entry »

Warren Spector has been making some interesting comments at GDC Europe, regarding the differences between games and film. And more specifically, developers who are trying to make the former like the latter. Stop it, he cries. “If you want make your game as a movie,” Develop reports the Epic Mickey developer saying, “you should be making movies”. He then goes on to discuss what games should be doing differently. But I’m not sure I agree.